


Started out with a kiss

by tinytrash575



Series: Missing Development [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Feelings Realization, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Jealous Lydia, Post-Nogitsune, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-29 12:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10853886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinytrash575/pseuds/tinytrash575
Summary: While contemplating the feeling she gets whenever she's around Stiles and Malia, Lydia realises something important. She reflects on the past few months to find out when things changed as her head catches up with her heart. Set during the beginning of season 4.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in the middle of 6A. I only intended for it to be a one-shot but then I kept working on it to keep up with canon as the season progressed. I have a lot of feelings about missing scenes, especially between seasons, and that definitely showed here. Also there will be more coming from me based off this fic, particularly some of the flashbacks. Enjoy.

Lydia wasn’t sure exactly what the niggling feeling that sat in her chest was, but she knew that she didn’t like it. She hated that she couldn’t explain it, couldn’t pinpoint exactly what chemical signals in her brain were causing this discomfort or isolate the reason it was happening. She was used to science, exact explanations, and while she was building up a tolerance to the unknown and uncontrollable due to the heavy supernatural presence in the town that she had been unwillingly sucked into, she still couldn’t stand having no control over her own emotions.

All she knew was that this sensation, this wriggling sense of wrongness that kept plaguing her, only seemed to happen when she saw Stiles and Malia together. She’d felt it when he’d announced they were officially a thing, she’d felt it whenever they all hung out, and she felt it now as they sat opposite her, leaning in towards each other and smiling, lost in their own conversation. She knew that she didn’t hate Malia, she wasn’t even sure if she disliked her, despite how sometimes it did feel like her presence in the group was trying to replace Allison. She wondered if it was that, but she knew nothing could ever replace Allison and they all knew it. They weren’t even trying to. She didn’t think it was just her missing Allison because it seemed to be whenever she saw Stiles and Malia together that she got this sinking feeling in her chest and she didn’t know why. It made them hard to be around. Lydia wondered if it was loneliness, now that she was the only single one in the group, but she never got this feeling around Scott and Kira, and loneliness was such an old friend to her that it would surely feel like a comfort to have it back. So the only conclusion that she had to draw was that something about their relationship bothered her.

Maybe she just thought they weren’t right for each other. But how would she know? She’d barely even seen them together, she didn’t know how they interacted when she wasn’t around. She didn’t know much about Malia, and for a second she wondered if she had much personality at all, but then she felt like a bitch. No, Malia was kind hearted, if a little blunt, and she was still learning how to be human, she should cut her some slack. It could be that she thought it was too soon after everything that happened, and something about that just didn’t sit right with her, but thinking back to that time just made her realise that Stiles more than anyone deserved some happiness.

_The week after Allison’s death had been a surreal experience for all of them. They’d all dealt with it differently. Lydia chose to keep herself busy, she’d gone back to school two days after it happened and poured herself into research when she got home from school. The nights were the worst, when all the studying and research and creating mathematic formulas had burned her out, but she wouldn’t dare close her eyes. Everyone seemed to forget that she’d lost not one person but two. As much as she’d liked to pretend she didn’t, she’d cared about Aiden, so the double loss weighed her down more than the others. Most nights she crawled into bed and cried herself into unconsciousness and then in the morning dosed herself up with coffee and did it all over again. She could barely stand being around the others, she needed people who weren’t going to see right through her and ask how she was holding up._

_Scott seemed to be holding up surprisingly well. He’d come back to school the day after her and always seemed able to bring himself to smile, despite the look in his eyes revealing the pain he was in. Kira was good to him, she wasn’t as affected by it as everyone else had been and she encouraged him to talk to her, which probably worked for him but she couldn’t think of anything worse. The only person she knew who was doing worse than her was Stiles. He hadn’t stepped foot back in the school since they defeated the Nogitsune there, and from what Scott had said, wasn’t eating or sleeping. She hadn’t seen him since the night when they defeated the Nogitsune, but it wasn’t until the funeral that she realised just how badly he was really doing._

_Oh, god, the funeral._

_It only finished an hour ago and Lydia already wished that she could lock the memories of it up deep inside her head where she would never have to think about them again. Where she would never have to think about the look on Allison’s father’s face or watching her best friend be lowered into the ground. She’d sat in her seat, the heavy weight of it all crushing her chest as tears spilled down her cheeks, the whispers of all the spirits surrounding them ringing in her ears. She just wanted one of those voices to be Allison’s, to tell her that she was going to get through this. Scott sat crying next to her, and Stiles looked even worse. He looked like a ghost, worse than he did once they’d exorcised the Nogitsune and it was taking his energy as it grew stronger. His skin was so pale that it made the dark circles under his eyes much more obvious, and his eyes, they looked soulless. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, just sat there the whole time._

_Now she was sat on Chris Argents couch, the sounds of people moving throughout the apartment surrounding her. She hadn’t spoken to anyone, just wiped the mascara from her cheeks in the bathroom, grabbed a drink, and then sat down. A part of her wanted to go and sit in Allison’s room, but she didn’t know if Chris wanted to keep people out of there. She also didn’t know if she could handle it, being surrounded by her things when she was gone and never coming back. She sat staring into the bottom of her empty glass, embracing the lead-like feeling in her chest and hoping no one spoke to her. She wasn’t in the mood for small talk. An urgent tap on her shoulder brought her out of her misery._

_“I need your help.” She turned to find Scott behind her, clutching a glass of water._

_“What’s wrong?” she asked, blinking herself out of her misery induced haze to properly register the person in front of her._

_“Its Stiles,” he answered. She felt her stomach drop._

_“Is he okay? What happened?” she asked immediately, nerves welling up inside her, reminding her of the desperate worried feeling that had been a permanent resident in her gut a few weeks ago, until grief moved in and kicked that feeling out._

_“He got sick so I went to get him some water,” Scott explained, holding up the glass for effect and managing to send some sloshing out of it and onto the rug. “And now he’s locked himself in the bathroom and won’t answer me. I thought that maybe you could get him to talk.” She thought of how he was at the funeral, eyes dead, jaw clenched, looking like he desperately didn’t want to be there. She realised that she hadn’t seen him since they’d come back to Argent’s apartment._

_“I’ll try,” she declared, rising out of her seat, setting her empty glass down on a side table. She followed Scott to the bathroom, both of them pressed their ears to the door, but she could hear nothing over the solemn hum of conversation from all around them._

_“Hey Stiles,” she said softly, but loud enough that he could hear her. “You okay in there?” No answer._

_“Can’t you hear him?” she asked Scott, an impatient hitch to her voice._

_“Right now the strongest heartbeat I can hear is yours,” He answered. Lydia sighed in frustration. After everything they went through with the Nogitsune she didn’t need to feel like this again. She didn’t want to still be constantly worrying about him. She let the tension go, reminding herself that none of them were at their best at the moment, Scott included, and that was probably messing with his wolf senses a little bit._

_“Please can you answer me, I need to know you’re okay,” she told the door, her voice a little more strained this time._

_“I’ll go call his dad,” announced Scott, digging into the pocket of his suit jacket. “See if he can come get him.” She nodded and then watched Scott disappear down the hallway. She sighed, trying to think of a way she could find out if he was okay that didn’t involve extensive property damage._

_“Fine,” she huffed. “If you don’t want to talk can you knock on the door or something so I know you’re conscious at least.” There was half a second of anxiety before a frantic knocking sounded from the other side of the door. Lydia’s sigh of relief was so strong she felt her whole body move with the force of it._

_“Are you okay? Knock once for yes,” she said to the door, pushing herself as close to it as she could possibly get. Two knocks vibrated against the wood._

_“Did you have a panic attack?” she asked. One knock._

_“Okay,” she breathed, now knowing exactly what the problem was. “Have you steadied your breathing?” Two knocks._

_“Well steady your breathing and then try to talk, don’t rush yourself. Put your head between your knees or breathe through your hands or something,” she listed frantically, cursing herself because despite being a certified genius, her brain had an awful habit of freezing at the most crucial of times. “Scott’s really worried about you, we both are.”_

_“His dad’s on the way,” said Scott, who had suddenly returned to her side. “Have you gotten anything out of him?”_

_“A couple of knocks on the door,” she explained, watching Scott glance at the door and then back at her. “He’s had a panic attack and just needs to calm down.” Scott pressed himself against the door._

_“Did you hear that buddy?” he said. “Your dad is on the way.”_

_“I can’t stay here,” Stiles’ strained voice came from the other side of the door. Lydia and Scott exchanged glances._

_“You won’t have to, your dad is on the way,” Scott replied. Lydia stepped out of the way a little. “You just need to unlock the door and come out while we wait for him.”_

_“I can’t go back out there,” he responded, his voice almost breaking._

_“You’ve got to, c’mon man, unlock the door,” Scott pleaded, resting his forehead against the door._

_“Couldn’t you just break the handle?” asked Lydia._

_“I don’t really want to damage Argent’s house, today of all days,” Scott explained with a slight grimace._

_“Fair enough,” Lydia conceded, folding her arms over her chest._

_“Well you’ve got to come out when your dad gets here so you can go home,” Scott said to the door. They looked at each other, both with unsure expressions, obviously wondering what it was going to take to get him to open the door._

_It went silent for a while, neither of them tried to make conversation with Stiles, or each other. When the Sherriff texted to let Scott know that he was downstairs Stiles eventually unlocked the door. Scott put his arm around him and the three of them moved towards the front door as inconspicuously as possible. Lydia watched as they shuffled out of the door and into the elevator without a word. Seeing the looks on both of their faces just made that awful feeling in her chest even worse._

Maybe it was because she was upset with him. The past few weeks he’d been acting like she barely even existed. Ever since he and Malia grew closer he’d been spending all of his time with her, and even though Lydia knew it shouldn’t, something about that stung. Over the past few months Stiles had become such a constant presence in her life, investigating supernatural mysteries with her and studying with her and encouraging her when she was trying to figure all the banshee stuff out, supporting her when she needed it. He was steady, comfortable, reliable, and now she could feel a hole in her life where he would usually be. He’d gone from being a stranger to one of her best friends, and it didn’t seem fair that now he had a girlfriend he was just ignoring her, especially after everything they’d been through in the past few months together.

_It was four days after the funeral when Lydia went to check on Stiles. He still hadn’t come back to school, and according to Scott, had gotten worse. He’d been going over there every day after school to check on him and take him school work, and earlier today he’d asked Lydia if she would go today, thinking the sight of a different face might do him good. She immediately agreed, having wanted to go over there ever since the funeral to see how he was. It hit her then how much she needed the two of them. A strange desperate ache bloomed in her chest at the thought of anything happening to either one of them. She’d lost her best friend, and these two boys were the next best thing she had, she needed both of them to be okay because she thought her heart might shatter if she lost any more people. It was already so broken, hanging on by a thread._

_That desperate feeling returned as she stood on Stiles’ porch, hand poised ready to knock on the door. He took a minute to get there, opening the door slowly, and she felt her body flood with relief as it slowly creaked open. That relief turned to sadness as she took him in standing in front of her. He was wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, his pale skin a stark contrast to the navy fabric of his shirt. She looked at his face, the dark puffy circles under his eyes now so prominent that it looked like he had two black eyes. He offered her a small smile as his painfully exhausted eyes roamed over her._

_“Hey,” she said softly, still studying the state of her friend._

_“Hey, come in,” he replied, his voice sounding like he had something stuck in his throat. She stepped inside the door, looking around the hall. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that he was gripping a side table for support, but pretended that she hadn’t seen._

_“Scott told me you were coming over, I tried to tidy the place up a little,” he said, noticing her surveying the state of the house. There was a little bit of clutter on most of the surfaces visible to her, but nothing gave the impression of a family struggling to cope. Maybe he’d cleaned up any evidence of that._

_“It’s okay,” she replied, not even sure if they were the right words. She was too busy looking for signs that everything was quietly falling apart. “Should we go up to your room?”_

_“Yeah why not,” he replied. The first thing she noticed, apart from the fact that he looked like he could pass out from exhaustion at any second, was the lack of familiarity to the tone of his voice, something about it just sounded off._

_Lydia followed Stiles up to his room, stepping in after him and pushing the door shut. The room was messy. Clothes shoved into a pile on the floor, plates of untouched food, unmade bed. The air smelled stale, it made her nostrils itch. Stiles sat himself down in the middle of the bed, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankles. She went and sat in the spot next to him, perched on the edge of the bed. The sheets felt warm, meaning that he’d probably got out of bed not that long ago._

_“I thought you said you’d cleaned up?” she said, her eyes falling to the pile of clothes on the floor before moving to focus on him, their shoulders inches from each other._

_“I said tried to clean up,” he replied, his hands folding in his lap “didn’t say I did a good job.” She laughed, glad to hear some of the usual sarcasm return to his voice. Their eyes met as he watched her laughing, and she noticed how heartbreakingly sad his were, like looking at her was crushing something inside him._

_“So how can I help you?” he asked her, but with a much flatter tone. “Unless you just wanted to insult my cleaning skills.”_

_“Well that would imply that you actually had cleaning skills to insult,” she fired back with a smile, testing the boundaries of the usual banter they fell into so easily. Stiles shot her a look, letting out a harsh laugh and shaking his head._

_“I wanted to see how you were doing,” she explained, figuring the time for snarky banter was over. “After the funeral, I wanted to check if you were okay.” The expression on his face shifted into something she couldn’t quite describe._

_“Well as you can see I’m just fine,” he said, the sarcasm in his voice so subtle that she almost missed it, but it was Stiles, so of course she noticed._

_“No you’re not,” she argued the second he’d finished speaking. She knew him far too well. She knew that he lied to those he cared about how much pain he was in so that they wouldn’t worry about him. She knew him well enough that she saw right through him._

_“And neither are you,” he responded, turning his head towards her and looking her right in the eye, his stare so focused that it was unnerving. “But you don’t like people seeing through your bullshit.” His words pierced her, digging hooks into her chest deep enough that they reached the darkest, most torn up parts of her. A ripple of frustration shot through her body as she remembered just how well he knew her too._

_“You did,” she fired back, refusing to break eye contact. “So now I’m seeing through yours, and you’re not okay.”_

_“Well that’s not exactly breaking news,” he snarked at her, a fed up expression on his face. Lydia felt a hum of annoyance, knowing he was being sarcastic in an attempt to dodge the topic. It was one of many things he did that infuriated her._

_“Then talk to me, because I know you’re keeping stuff from Scott,” she said, almost pleading with him, clasping her hands together in her lap. She knew he was keeping the full extent of the emotional damage that the Nogitsune and everything that followed it had caused him. There was no way he’d want Scott to be worrying about him while he was grieving himself, and there was a dark cloud around him so heavy that she could almost see it. She knew there had to be stuff he wasn’t saying, and if anything confirmed it, it was the look on his face just now._

_“You should save yourself the trouble of caring,” he said, so emotionless that it turned her stomach. Lydia felt her mouth fall open with disbelief over his words. “I mean it’s my fault she’s gone, and Aiden.”_

_“No it isn’t,” she choked, his utter hopelessness finding that last piece of her heart that was still intact and beating it with a hammer. She rested her hand on his leg. “That was not you, what is it going to take for us to get you to believe that?”_

_“I’m sorry.” He tilted his head back, leaning against the headboard, eyes closed. He barely choked out the words._

_Stiles’ pain was so obvious Lydia swore she could feel it seeping its way into her blood and sitting heavily in her lungs, pulling so hard that it felt like her chest would cave in. There was no way she could comprehend what having that thing inside his head had done to him, all the things it had done and all the while he was completely powerless to stop it. The only thing she knew was that she wanted his pain to end. She put one hand on his arm and the other on his shoulder and guided him down so he was leaning against her side, pressed tightly against her. He smelled of sweat and his hair was greasy when she combed her fingers through it. She wondered how long he’d been wearing these clothes._

_“I know you feel responsible, but nobody blames you for this, no one but yourself, and you shouldn’t,” she murmured, running her hand down his arm. “You weren’t in control, you were not responsible for those deaths.” He sighed loudly and then sat himself back up._

_“So you and Scott and everyone else keep trying to tell me,” he began, clearly not helped by her words. He put an inch of space between them. “But you shouldn’t. I don’t deserve your help. If I hadn’t been so fucking weak then that thing wouldn’t have got inside my head and none of this would have happened.” He looked so defeated, his eyes completely lightless. She was done, crumbling from the inside out._

_“No. You know what I don’t deserve,” She started, her voice wavering where she was trying to keep it together and not succumb to the lump forming in her throat. “I do not deserve to lose another person so soon after losing my best friend. I am not going to let you keep blaming yourself and wasting away like this. I already lost Allison, don’t let me lose you too.”_

_“I did all of this,” he breathed, turning away and closing his eyes like it hurt him to look at her. “You’d be-”_

_“Don’t you dare,” she snapped, hot tears already threatening to spill down her cheeks. “Don’t you dare tell me I’d be better off not caring, because that is not an option. We need you, I need you, and you feeling like you don’t deserve our help isn’t going to stop us from trying to help you.” The lump in her throat was now so big that she thought she would choke on it, her vision blurry with tears she was fighting to not shed._

_“Lydia,” he sighed. Broken, desperate._

_“I need you to pull yourself out of this,” she explained, feeling the first tear escape from her eye and begin its slide down her cheeks. “I need you to be okay because I can’t-” She couldn’t finish the sentence before her insides snapped and she was sobbing uncontrollably. Stiles moved into action immediately, wrapping his arms around her and holding her against him. She cried, clinging to his arm so hard that she was worried it would come out of the socket. Her chest heaved with loud heavy sobs, like she was trying to force out everything that had been building up inside her ever since it happened. Her lungs began to ache with the effort but she cried until she was exhausted, attempting to slow her erratic breathing. She only then noticed that he’d begun to rock her gently._

_“I just need you to be okay,” she choked out, sucking in a lung full of air. Stiles was the only person, aside from Allison, she was willing to let see her like this, and he’d always managed to be there for her in a way that made her feel completely at ease._

_“Okay,” he whispered, helping her upright once she’d relinquished her grip on his arm. She wiped the tears and snot and drool off of her hands onto the sheets and tried not to notice him doing the same._

_“So what have you been doing? You know, to cope and stuff.”_

_“I’ve kept myself busy,” she explained, wiping her damp cheeks, examining the black smears of ruined make up on her hands. “Tried to avoid thinking about it, talking about it.”_

_“Maybe you need to talk about it,” he suggested, running a hand down her back. She wanted to scoff at the irony, but she figured that it probably wouldn’t be helpful._

_“But I don’t want to talk about it, to anyone,” she stated, turning to look at him. A part of her told her not to, that she didn’t want him seeing her face while it must be ugly and blotchy and smeared with make up, but worrying about things like that seemed so pointless now._

_“You’re talking to me,” He said, his features softer as his eyes focused on her face. It made something in her chest feel warm, a welcome difference to the numbness that had settled there since Allison’s death._

_“Well you’re in no position to lecture me on unhealthy coping strategies,” she replied, shooting him a look. “Do you talk about it?”_

_“I can’t think of anything worse,” he cringed. A harsh whisper of a laugh slipped past her lips._

_“So you see my point,” she stated. If it were any other conversation at any other time there would be a hint of smugness to her voice._

_“You should probably still talk about it,” Stiles suggested. His persistence was starting to get under her skin, frustrating because he was so quick to advise her on how to cope better but refused to help himself. That frustration faded somewhat when a moment of silence swept over them. They were looking at each other but not talking, and it made her notice softness in his eyes that wasn’t there before. As he looked at her she could see pain, but it was a different kind, a more desperate kind. And then she knew. He was so persistent because he couldn’t bear the thought of her feeling the way he did._

_“Well you need to stop lying to Scott and your dad,” Lydia argued, feeling that fierce desire for him to get better rise in her. He blinked at her, and she knew right away that he didn’t think he could._

_“If they knew how I really felt,” The words sent a chill straight to her heart, the myriad of awful things that his statement could possibly mean swirling around in her head. Stiles looked at her so desperately, like he was seconds away from begging her not to make him tell them. She knew then that it must be bad, if he wanted to protect them from his own thoughts that much._

_“You can’t keep doing it to them,” she told him, knowing the pain it would cause if they found out. “You either pull yourself together or be honest with them.” The look that flashed across his face hit her like a lightning strike to the chest. She knew then why he was being so difficult, so eager to help her but unwilling to help himself. He wanted to torture himself. He wanted the guilt to grip him and drag him under, never letting him forget. He thinks he doesn’t deserve to heal, but he couldn’t have Scott and his dad knowing that, it would break their hearts._

_“And you can’t keep yourself busy and not talk about it,” Stiles continued, his fingers inching closer towards where hers sat resting in the space between them coated in smears of black. “Not talking about it isn’t good, trust me.” Lydia raised her eyebrows at the utter irony of his words, but then let her face relax. She noticed his hand centimetres away from hers and slowly moved to cover his fingers with her own._

_“Maybe if you can’t be honest with them then you should be honest with me,” said Lydia, slipping her hand into his. He squeezed her hand, offering her a pained look, and then took a deep, steady breath. She looked at him, imploring him to open up to her. He let out a sigh and then ran the hand she wasn’t holding through his hair, turning his head so he was no longer looking at her._

_“I can’t stop thinking about it, all of it,” he started, gripping and then releasing his sheets as he spoke, still not looking at her. She could feel his body fighting to keep still, his hand twitching in hers. “I was conscious through all of it. The things it told me it was going to get me to do to you guys. I twisted a sword into my best friend, people are dead because I couldn’t close that freaking door in my mind. That thing killed people while wearing my face. I still have the images of what it wanted to do to all of you in my head.” He finally turned to look at her, letting her see the lone tear sliding down his cheek. She smiled at him, a soft, kind smile, before wiping his cheek with her thumb._

_“That’s the thing,” she began tentatively, cupping his cheek so he looked at her. “You’re not going out so you’re doing nothing but thinking about it, you need a distraction.”_

_“I can’t turn it off,” he replied immediately, his voice unsteady and scared. “And I don’t think distracting myself is going to stop that.”_

_“You could at least try,” she said quietly, dropping her hand from where it rested against his cheek._

_“And what about you?” he questioned, leaning forward so they were practically shoulder to shoulder. “I’m not the only one pretending here.”_

_“Maybe if I had one less person to worry about losing I’d be doing a lot better,” she answered with a sad smile, touching his arm._

_“So does this mean you’re going to talk to me?” Stiles asked. Lydia took a deep breath, looking away from him._

_“I’ve lost two people I cared about and I keep seeing them everywhere, wondering how I’m supposed go on without them, and it hurts so much, She confessed, her voice hitching with the effort not to cry again as each word felt like a knife in her chest. She leant into the warmth of where his shoulder touched hers, turning to face him. “I feel like my chest is being stabbed with a million tiny shards of glass every second of every day and its suffocating me. Everyone seems to be doing better than I am, and I’m not sleeping. There, happy?” He smiled at her, but his eyes looked like he’d just watched his heart be ripped out of his chest._

_“You’re not sleeping either, huh?” is what he managed to say._

_“I’m relying a lot on coffee and concealer,” she laughed, but it came out harsh, strangled. “I can’t close my eyes without seeing them, it’s too painful.”_

_“I know the feeling,” he said flatly._

_“Yeah, you look terrible,” she replied. He laughed._

_“Wow, don’t you know just how to brighten a guy’s day,” he quipped, but then his face turned serious. “I can’t, not when I know what’s waiting for me when I close my eyes.” She could hear it in his voice, how terrified he was of what awaited him in his nightmares._

_“So neither of us are sleeping,” she stated, pondering their situation. “Maybe we should help each other out.”_

_“Trust me, there’s nothing you can do to help this,” he responded._

_“I can be there for you, you can call me after you’ve had a nightmare and I’ll be there,” She explained, leaning into the point where their shoulders touched. “But for me to help you, you’ll need to help me, and you can’t do that until you’re okay,” she paused, rethinking her words. “Well, more okay than this.”_

That had been the roughest month of their lives, but they’d leant on each other, and on Scott, and managed to bring each other back from those dark places. They had distracted themselves together, wandered around the town in the early hours on nights when neither of them could sleep, talked each other through nightmares. Eventually all of them began to move forward together, that’s when everything started to change. Scott brought Stiles along while he was teaching Malia to control her shifting, and that’s when they got close and Lydia was forgotten. It still stung deeply, after all they’d been through. Like he’d reached his hands inside of her chest and ripped out a piece of her heart, taking it away with him. But a part of her couldn’t blame him, it was his first relationship after all, she remembered what that felt like, and if Malia kept his thoughts away from that terrifyingly dark pit he’d been in, well she couldn’t begrudge him that could she. She’d just have to tell him that he was being a shitty friend another time.

Lydia wondered if maybe it was both of those things. Maybe they’d twisted together and moulded with the grief Stiles was no longer helping her deal with. She watched him smile, leaning closer to her. She remembered the first time she saw him really smile after the Nogitsune incident. The three of them were sat watching movies together and Scott’s foot got caught on something as he went to get soda cans and he almost face planted the floor. He’d laughed and made some wisecrack about werewolf senses doing nothing to help his balance. She remembered the feeling of relief and happiness that swelled inside her as she looked at him, his contagious laughter reaching something deep in her soul and making everything suddenly feel lighter. She remembered being sat in the front seat of his Jeep bickering with him about the state of its interior at two in the morning as he dropped another Reece’s peanut butter cup wrapper to the floor, claiming he’d clean the Jeep out in the morning. She remembered the hollow feeling in her chest when she realised that he was starting to ignore her for Malia, how much it hurt, how the last thing she expected was for _him_ of all people to do that to her. She remembered that hoodie of his that she still had at the bottom of her closet from when he’d given it to her after they’d got caught in the rain one night and she’d had no jacket. She noticed that the more she thought about all of these things the worse this feeling got, and the last time she remembered feeling this awful was after Jackson broke up with her and started flirting with Allison.

Her eyes shot wide open.

No.

That was not what was happening here.

It couldn’t be.

“Are you okay?” Scott asked from where he sat next to her.

“I’m fine,” Lydia replied hastily.

This wasn’t happening.

She couldn’t possibly be jealous Stiles’ relationship with Malia, because that would mean she had feelings for him.

Oh god, she had feelings for him.


	2. Chapter 2

Lydia closed the front door behind her after she let herself in, allowing a relieved sigh to fall past her lips. Once the door was locked she wandered slowly through the rooms on the ground floor of her large house, taking in its emptiness before stopping in the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water, bringing it with her to the couch so she could try and figure all of this out. How? How did this happen? How did she not notice this before? How had she managed to develop romantic feelings for Stiles and have no idea?

 The one thing she’d known immediately is that her suspicions were correct, she did have feelings for him, which made continuing to sit there with the pack more awkward that she could stand so she left at the first opportunity, heading home so she could try and figure her feelings without the person they were aimed at sat right opposite her with his new girlfriend.

_“Sorry guys, but I’m going to have to take off,” said Lydia, rising from her seat. The second the words left her mouth everyone turned from whatever conversations they were immersed in and looked at her. The sudden feeling of eight eyes on her made something in her stomach churn, only adding to the uncomfortable swirling of emotions that currently resided in her chest, making her breath catch as they stared up at her._

_“Aw, really?” Kira’s voice came from behind Scott’s shoulder. Lydia met her eyes, trying not to notice the look of slight sadness they held._

_“Yeah, sorry?” she explained, still only looking at Kira, before moving to stand at the head of the table so she was addressing all of them. “You guys are just going to have to try and figure out what’s going on without me for a while.” She bent down to pick her purse up from under the table._

_“But we’re getting close, I know it,” said Scott, determination strong in his voice. Lydia was tempted to let out a quiet sigh but knew he would hear her. She felt bad about leaving them in the middle of this, but there was no way she could stay with all of these thoughts floating around in her mind, especially with Stiles sat opposite her. She had to go home to figure out exactly what it was that she felt. Well, anywhere that he wasn’t._

_“And you can get even closer without me,” Lydia argued, trying desperately to avoid sounding irritated. She didn’t want to take it out on them, this frustration building up inside her, but they kept pushing her to stay and she couldn’t. “I’m not the only person capable of figuring stuff out.” She almost looked over at Stiles but she wouldn’t let her eyes betray her._

_“Do you have to go?” asked Kira, offering her a small smile._

_“Yeah,” Lydia replied. She knew Kira just wanted to make sure she was okay, considering that it wasn’t all that long ago they were all navigating their way though grief. They still were. “I’ve got stuff I need to do at home that I completely forgot about.”_

_“It feels like we’re seeing so little of you lately,” Scott added, and it made her smile a little. He just wanted his pack to be alright, but she hoped that she didn’t have to insist on her leaving for much longer, it was starting to get exhausting.“Are sure you can’t stay?”_

_“Yes, I can’t stay here,” she explained, hoping that it would be the last time. Lydia could feel annoyance welling up inside her, mingling with the already confusing mess of emotions going on in her head. “And maybe I haven’t exactly felt like socialising a lot recently. Don’t worry, I’ll play fifth wheel with you guys another time.” She hadn’t meant for the last bit to come out, but she knew they wouldn’t begrudge her being snappy with them. Her eyes fell to the floor so she didn’t have to see if she’d hurt any of them._

_“Are you okay?” a voice yet to contribute to this conversation spoke. She looked up at Stiles, feeling her irritation and upset with him grow._ Oh, so now he cares, _she thought to herself, desperately hoping that her features were not betraying her, especially not to him._

_“I’m fine I just,” she stated, already knowing that he wasn’t going to believe her, but she didn’t want to acknowledge his ability to read her like a book. “I just have to go.”_

_“Lydia,” said Stiles, the sound of her name on his lips tugging painfully at her heart. She closed her eyes, just for a second._

_“If she wants to go you can’t make her stay,” said Malia, resting her hand on his arm. Stiles turned away to look at Malia, leaving Lydia unclear on how he felt about what Malia had just said to him._

_“Its alright, we get it,” Scott said softly, resting his hand on hers. Their eyes met, and his were full of understanding. She knew instantly that he thought this was about Allison, and as guilty as she felt to hide behind her grief, she took his acceptance and prepared to leave. “We’ll call you if we have anything.”_

_“Okay,” she responded, nodding her head. “Bye guys.”_

_“Bye Lydia,” they all called as she walked away. As soon as she was far enough away she let out such a heavy sigh that she felt as if a weight was lifted from her chest and expelled rather than a breath of air._

She took a sip of water before placing the glass on the coffee table in front of her. Closing her eyes, she sighed, considering her incredibly unfortunate timing. Lydia struggled to make sense of it. How had she gone and developed romantic feelings for one of her best friends? And only noticed now when she was upset with him and he had a girlfriend. She wondered then if half the reason she was upset with him was because he had a girlfriend, and was just using his shift in attention as a way to justify that. No, she shook her head. Girlfriend or no he still should not have done that to her when she needed him, and she had every right to be upset. It just made everything even more complicated. It even made her question everything she felt towards Malia, if every grievance she’d had with the girl’s behaviour was simply because she was Stiles’ girlfriend. After everything Allison had taught her about friendship and being there for other people was she really being that petty? She’d always been so careful, so guarded, tried to keep all of her thoughts in check so this type of thing didn’t happen. But it had, and now she had to tangle through the twisted mess of her emotions and work out exactly when her feelings for Stiles stopped being completely platonic so she could regain some control over the situation.

So when exactly did this happen? She wondered, raking one hand through her soft strawberry blonde hair trying to extract a memory, a moment, anything that could tell her when things had changed. It couldn’t have been after his possession, because in her grief she knew it was Stiles that she wanted to seek comfort in, but just put it down to him being supportive and how she always felt so calm and comfortable around him, which now that she looked at it made her feel like an idiot for not noticing sooner. Maybe the possession itself stirred up these feelings, maybe watching the Nogitsune slowly take him over and how powerless they all were to stop it caused something in her subconscious realise that he meant more to her than just a friend, and that her conscious was so overcome with worry that they wouldn’t be able to save him that it just didn’t register. But even that didn’t feel right, something told her that it was earlier than that. She remembered feeling most connected to Stiles in the days leading up to finding out he’d been possessed. That moment in his room when they were talking about Barrow and she realised that he had total and complete faith in her made her feel closer to him than she ever had.

_“Get up now,” Stiles blurted, turning to face the red string covered board and then walking hurriedly towards it. “We’re going to school.”_

_“What is it?” Lydia asked, brought back to reality by his sudden movements. For a second she could still feel the whisper of his skin on hers, untangling the piece of string from around her finger. She still wasn’t quite sure exactly what was happening, her thoughts had been clouded somewhat by the tenderness of the moment the two of them had just shared._

_“I’ve just thought of something,” Stiles answered, his back to her, examining one of the pictures pinned up on his board. “But we need to go back to the school to see if I’m right.” Then he was dashing around his room, grabbing his keys off the desk against the opposite wall and shoving them into his pocket._

_“What have you figured out?” asked Lydia, still trying to catch up with his frantic movements._

_“I’ll explain on the way,” Stiles said, practically out of the room already. He leant against the doorway, looking at her still lying on his bed. She wondered for a second when she got so comfortable in his room. “Just grab your shoes and come on.”_

_Lydia could hear him barrelling down the stairs by the time she picked up her purse and tan heels from where they sat at the foot of his bed, planning to wait until she got downstairs to slip them on her feet, that way she could avoid falling down the stairs in an effort to keep up with him._

_He was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, keys in hand, front door open. He watched her stop and slip on her shoes before heading out the door. Stiles quickly locked the front door and then joined her where she was waiting leaning against the passenger side door of his Jeep. He jumped in the driver’s seat, pulling the door closed with a bang, while Lydia gently climbed into the vehicle, quickly pulling down the hem of her skirt before sitting in the seat and buckling the seatbelt. They juddered off the driveway and out into the street, Stiles driving faster than he probably should have been._

_Lydia watched the town pass her in the dark as they make their way to school, observing the way the streetlights made the horizon sparkle. Stiles still hadn’t told her his theory, but she hoped it was right. She couldn’t bear the thought of that murderer out on the loose when she had the power to find him but couldn’t. She realised that if it hadn’t been for her then Stiles wouldn’t have even had this idea in the first place. If he hadn’t seen how dejected she seemed when they couldn’t find Barrow and offered to spend the evening with her working on ways to find him then they wouldn’t even be on their way to school right now. If he hadn’t believed in her when it felt like everyone else had given up, he even got himself detention for a week because he had so much faith in her._

_“Hey,” said Lydia, breaking the silence that had settled in the Jeep. Stiles’ head jerked towards her, temporarily taking his eyes off the road._

_“Yeah,” he answered, meeting Lydia’s eyes briefly before looking back at the road. They came to a red light and stopped._

_“What you said,” she began, the words feeling awkward in her mouth. A strange warmth stirred in her chest. She wasn’t sure what it was but she liked it. When he looked over at her again their eyes met, and she noticed how in the dark his eyes looked black. “About going back to the school and searching all night if I wanted to.”_

_“Yeah,” he said softly, silently urging her to continue. The light changed to amber and his attention shifted back to the jeep, preparing to speed ahead._

_“Thank you,” she said quietly, watching him stick his tongue out in anticipation of the light turning green. It changed and the Jeep spluttered into motion again, propelling them forwards._

_“For what?” he asked absentmindedly, changing gears. She let out a silent laugh, of course he wouldn’t see this as a big deal, believing in her is just what Stiles does, what he’d done as long as she’d known him._

_“For believing me,” Lydia explained, her voice softer than she expected it to be, it seemed almost drowned out by the rumbling of the Jeep’s engine, sucked into the space surrounding them. They took a left turn, swinging around the corner. “It’s pretty difficult sometimes when you’re the only person who can hear what I can, it makes you feel like you’re crazy.”_

_“Well I’d be an idiot not to believe you, considering how many times you’ve been right about this stuff before,” Stiles responded. Lydia smiled, feeling the warmth in her chest start to spread._

_“It’s just today it felt like you were the only one listening to me,” she sighed, looking down at her lap before looking back at his hands on the wheel. Ever since they’d become close friends she had grown observant of the way he occupied space, how when he talked he was all flailing limbs and gesticulation, the way he held the steering wheel when he drove, the way she could sometimes tell what kind of mood he was in just by subtle movements._

_“I’m always going to listen to you,” Stiles reassured her, briefly glancing over to where she sat in the passenger seat. “What you can do is far too important for me to not trust your instincts, so if you say you felt something then I believe you.”_

_“Thanks,” Lydia replied fondly, her smile growing wider. It was starting to hurt her cheeks and if it wasn’t so dark then she would bet he’d be able to see the hint of colour creeping into them._

_“And if you’re ever unsure on anything,” Stiles continued, his voice sounding softer now, like it had back in his bedroom when he took hold of her finger and begun unwinding the red string that was twisted around it. “Then I’ll do whatever it takes to help you figure it out if it’ll get you to believe in yourself.” A small sigh escaped Lydia’s lips, so soft and quiet that she almost didn’t hear it herself. She turned away from him, her cheeks now starting to hurt with the effort of smiling this hard. Everything about this moment felt so comfortable, so intimate, that she felt her insides blossoming with warmth from his unwavering support._

_“I’m working on it,” she said after a silence that was a little too long to continue being comfortable, the muscles in her cheeks glad for some relief. “Believing in myself, that is.”_

_“Yeah well I hope you work on it fast. You shouldn’t doubt your own instincts as much as you do,” he replied, looking over at her as he made a right turn. She could see the sincerity on his face, not that she’d doubted his sincerity for even a second. She continued looking at him once his eyes were back on the road, thinking about how thankful she was that the two of them were friends. After Allison, Stiles was probably the closest person to her, and it felt so surreal that this time last year they were strangers and now they were this._

_“It’s kind of hard not to after days like today,” Lydia explained, her chest feeling a little bit colder as she thought about it “There was no evidence of Barrow being there even though I was sure he was.”_

_“No evidence yet,” Stiles said confidently, turning to quickly grin at her._

_“What are you thinking?” asked Lydia, suddenly remembering his theory that on the way here she seemed to have almost forgotten about. The one he still hadn’t explained._

_“I’m thinking that we’re about to prove you were right all along,” he claimed, turning the Jeep onto the street where their school was located. They parked, Stiles stumbling out of the Jeep, waiting for Lydia to step out before they made their way into school to investigate his theory that he explained on their way inside._

So maybe it extended further back, maybe their human sacrifice and being his emotional tether spurred those feelings deep inside her, but at what point did they become tethered in the first place? That connection must have already been there, at least a little.

And then she realised.

It was that kiss.

That desperate, haphazard kiss on the locker room floor. Of all the things she could have thought of trying why did she choose to kiss him? What in that moment made her think of doing that? It wasn’t the most advisable course of action to take so what made her do it? She thought back, trying to remember everything about that moment and what lead up to it. She remembered feeling frantic, desperate to help him and completely out of her depth. She remembered a warm feeling afterwards, a lightness that spread through her like a blossoming flower. At the time she must have thought it was relief, all the panic and desperation and discomfort from that moment obscuring her from realising what that feeling really was. That kiss changed things. That kiss that they’d never even talked about after. That kiss that in her mind made them feel closer, that made her notice him differently from that point onwards.

_Lydia made her way up the stairs, following Stiles into his room. He’d called her randomly about half an hour ago asking her if she wanted to come over and hang out, and since she had no plans with Allison, she agreed. Seeing his name flash up on her phone left her with a strange feeling of anticipation. It had been almost two weeks since he, Scott and Allison had sacrificed themselves to save their parents, which had revealed that she and Stiles were emotionally tethered. They hadn’t really talked about that fact much since, or the fact that they’d kissed, albeit to stop his panic attack. She wondered if they ever would. It hadn’t made anything about their friendship uncomfortable, not for her at least. If anything it had left her wanting to spend more time with him, because ever since Deaton pointed out their emotional tether she could feel it. She noticed it in little things. They stepped over the threshold into his room and she closed the door behind them._

_“Can I sit?” she asked, immediately heading in the direction of his bed, while he headed towards his desk where his laptop sat open._

_“Yeah,” Stiles replied, looking up from his laptop and surveying the state of his very unmade bed. He cringed. “Probably should’ve made my bed first.”_

_“It’s fine,” Lydia replied, looking down at the rumpled blue sheets hanging halfway off the bed. She dropped her purse at the foot of the bed and sat down._

_“So how’ve you been?” asked Stiles, bent over his desk staring down at his laptop. Lydia’s eyes were slowly moving around the room, but his voice brought her attention to him._

_“Fine,” she answered, eyes roaming again. “But I’m not the one who sacrificed myself a few weeks ago, how are you?”_

_“Good,” he began, nodding his head slightly, attention still focused on his laptop. “Living in anticipation of whatever supernatural menace the magic tree stump we awakened with our sacrifice is drawing here next, you know, totally normal stuff.”_

_“You could always try, I don’t know, relaxing,” Lydia responded, rolling her eyes at the fact that they finally have a threat free moment, and here he was waiting for more danger. “Enjoying having time where we’re not worrying about supernatural threats.”_

_“But why would I do that when worrying about whatever supernatural creature could be coming after my very un-supernatural ass is much more fun,” Stiles replied, his words dripping with the usual level of sarcasm. Lydia rolled her eyes again, shooting him an unimpressed look._

_“Seriously though, somebody’s got to be prepared for it,” he said, turning away from his laptop and looking at her._

_“Well maybe we should know what we’re preparing for before actually preparing for it,” Lydia argued, suddenly finding his inability to relax for just five minutes rather irritating. “Which would mean something bad would actually have to happen first.”_

_“How do you know it hasn’t?” Stiles fired back, leaning his side against the desk as he turned to face Lydia._

_“Because I haven’t found any dead bodies recently, thank god,” she explained, feeling an increased desperation to get through to him. She didn’t know why she felt like she needed to convince him to chill out so much. Maybe this emotional tether thing was influencing her, making her feel more concerned. “And there’s been nothing else suspicious happening.” He nodded his head, silently admitting that she had a point, before turning back towards his desk._

_Lydia felt a sudden determination to know what was so fascinating about whatever Stiles was looking at on his laptop. He’d been preoccupied with the thing the whole time she’d been there, and he’d called her over, it wasn’t like she’d just dropped by while he was in the middle of something. She watched him, the way his eyes darted across the screen, mouth slightly open in concentration. He was probably biting the little bit of tongue that sometimes sticks out when he concentrates, Lydia thought, wondering when it was they she’d paid enough attention to him to notice that, let alone be consciously thinking about his habits. She shifted her attention to the desk. Surrounding his laptop were various open notebooks. She stood up, casting her eyes over to the notebooks. She noticed that all of the open pages contained lists with various items crossed out. The list on the notebook closest to the laptop was the shortest._

_“What’s that?” she asked, her tone suspicious. Stiles looked up from the laptop screen and noticed her staring at his notebooks._

_“Oh, just some research,” he replied nonchalantly, grabbing a pen from the desk and scribbling over something written down in one of the notebooks to cross it out. Lydia’s eyes narrowed._

_“What kind of research?” she asked slowly, watching his movements closely. Stiles dropped the pen back on the surface of the desk after he was finished using it and returned to whatever he was reading on his laptop. Lydia inched closer to him._

_“The supernatural kind,” Stiles answered, narrowing his eyes at something on the screen. Lydia huffed in annoyance, suddenly frustrated that he’d been spending his time researching instead of enjoying the fact that there was currently nothing trying to kill them. Why did he have to be so suspicious of everything? He needed to be looking after himself, especially after the sacrifice. Deaton said it was going to affect them all, leave a darkness around them, and if he was doing all this research on stuff that hadn’t even happened yet then he probably wasn’t focusing on making sure that darkness wasn’t getting to him. His health should be his top priority right now, not some potential threat when nothing bad had happened in weeks. Why did she have to be emotionally tethered to someone so infuriating?_

_“Is that why you asked me to come over?” Asked Lydia, her tone accusatory. Stiles looked up from the laptop and faced her, and she could feel heat rushing to her cheeks with how frustrated with him she was. “You need to stop this and relax a little or you’re going to drive yourself crazy.”_

_“Yeah, well think it might be a little too late for that,” he answered, his voice cold. He almost sounded scared. The frustration that had built in Lydia’s chest instantly turned to anxiety._

_“What do you mean?” she asked tentatively, worry shaking her voice. Stiles looked right at her, and she could see fear in his eyes._

_“How much do you know about sleep paralysis?” he asked. Lydia instantly thought of the medical definition._

_“It’s the temporary inability to move, speak or react when waking up or falling asle-” she began reciting, but then noticed the way Stiles’ expression quickly changed from poorly concealed terror to exasperation. He nodded his head at her, his lips a thin line, eyebrows raised, like she was explaining something that was already painfully obvious to him. And then she clicked. “You’re having sleep paralysis?”_

_“Yeah,” he confirmed, his voice harsh and breathy, like he was struggling to admit it. Lydia inhaled sharply, thoughts whirring as she tried to figure out why she suddenly felt so uneasy._

_“It started right after the sacrifices,” Stiles explained, stepping away from the desk. “Sleep paralysis, weird dreams, not being able to tell if I’ve actually woken up or if I’m still dreaming,” He continued, gesticulating as he gave her the details. Lydia could see how much this had him freaked out, it made something in her chest clench with a desire to help him. “I’m having to literally scream myself awake Lydia, it’s horrible.” He stopped. Lydia looked over at the notes on the desk, wondering how the two things were related._

_“I want to make sure it’s just the after effects of the sacrifice and not some creature messing around with my head,” Explained Stiles, like he’d just read her mind. She could hear how much the possibility scared him, how desperate he was to disprove his deepest fears. Lydia reached out and touched his arm._

_“I’m sure there are no supernatural creatures messing around with your head,” she said, her voice soft with the need to reassure him. His eyes flicked down to where her hand touched the sleeve of his flannel shirt and then back up to her face. “The explanation for this could be a lot more human than you think.”_

_“Come sit down, tell me about the dreams,” she instructed, gently tugging on his arm so he followed her back to the bed. Lydia sat down in the exact spot she had been in before and Stiles sat down next to her._

_He launched right into telling her everything. He told her about how the dreams had been happening every night since the sacrifices and seemed to be getting progressively worse. He told her about the times where he thinks he’s woken up and then realises that he’s still dreaming, having dreams inside dreams and then waking up screaming so loud that his dad has to rush in the room. He told her about the sleep paralysis and about how every dream seems to feature the nemeton._

_The whole time Stiles talked Lydia couldn’t help but watch his face. She didn’t know why but she felt drawn to it. There were a few inches between them where they sat on the bed but she felt so close to him, noticing things about him that she hadn’t before. She noticed how clearly you could see his emotions through his eyes, how right now they were wide and fearful as he described his nightmares to her. She noticed how in the light his eyes were a warm whiskey colour. She noticed how many moles there were on his left cheek, the few strands of hair that were falling out of place from where he’d been running his hands through it as he talked, how much better his hair shaped his face since he’d grown it out over the summer. She noticed all of these things as she listened to him talk, feeling the emotional connection between them pull her, like it had them both at opposite ends of a string._

_“Have you talked to Scott about this?” Lydia asked once Stiles was done talking._

_“Not really,” he admitted, shaking his head. He clasped his hands together and then released them. “I don’t want to worry him, he’s not exactly been himself lately.”_

_“How do you mean?” asked Lydia._

_“Jumpy, agitated, distracted,” Stiles listed, holding up fingers with each word._

_“Maybe the two of you need to talk to each other,” Lydia suggested, increasingly suspecting that Stiles wasn’t the only one having problems. The thought brought a rush of relief to her chest. He was probably going to be fine, so he could stop worrying about the idea of some creature meddling with his mind._

_“Yeah,” he said quietly, nodding in agreement._

_“And Allison,” Lydia added, suddenly remembering that she’d been acting really off in the last few weeks too. “She’s not been herself either since it happened.” A moment of silence passed between them and Lydia could see relief in Stiles’ eyes._

_“So it’s not just you,” she reminded him, leaning in so their arms were pressed against each other. She’d wanted to put her hand on his leg, just above his knee, but decided against it. “And if you’re all that worried then I’m sure you can talk to Deaton about it, but for now just talk to Scott.”_

_“Yeah you’re right Lyds,” said Stiles, giving her a relieved smile. She felt warmth spread in her chest at the nickname._

_“I usually am,” she grinned, tilting her head to the side so that her hair spilled over her shoulder._

Now it was glaringly obvious, that there had been something that clicked into place so effortlessly between them after that kiss. She wondered how the hell she didn’t notice it while it was happening. How did she manage to form such a bond with someone so quickly and never question that maybe she had romantic feelings for him? Maybe it’s because it was all new to her, this intimacy thing. She hadn’t known true intimate friendship until Allison, who taught her how to be vulnerable and let people in, how to relinquish control and rely on someone other than herself. She taught her how to trust. She’d never had a friendship so intense, so rewarding and caring before. Maybe that’s why when it started happening with Stiles that she didn’t question her feelings as anything other than friendship, because that was what it had felt like, and she hadn’t had any all consuming friendships before Allison came along, so how would she even know the difference. Maybe it was her beliefs on love clouding her judgement. Her relationship with Jackson hadn’t felt like this, even though she had loved him, and her relationship with Aiden started out purely based on lust. She didn’t know romantic attraction to feel any other way. Society sold the importance of physical attraction, the romantic movies that she loved so much sold the idea of falling in love with the beautiful stranger that you felt an instant connection to, but that’s not how things happened with Stiles. It was slow, gradual. He went from a stranger to an acquaintance to a friend and that connection wasn’t there, not at the start.

That must be how it crept up on her, why she wasn’t expecting it, because everything in her life had told her that the perfect romance was based on physical attraction and instant chemistry. She never realised that you could develop romantic feelings that way, but she knew now that you definitely could. And she had, for one of her best friends, just as he’d got a girlfriend. She wished so much that Allison were here with her, she would have known exactly what to say. She would have helped her figure this mess out rather than her having to do it on her own, leaving her mistrusting her own heart. She wondered if Allison had known, if she was looking down on her now with a satisfied grin on her beautiful face.

Though she knew one thing with certainty, she knew that her feelings for Stiles were definitely romantic, and most likely had been for a while, but she had been too blinded by life to see it. She wondered what she was going to do now. It was obvious that there was nothing she could do about these feelings, and thinking back on all the time they’d spent together had almost made her forget how angry with him she was for abandoning her. Maybe she could use that anger to try and make these feelings go away, but something deep down told her that they weren’t disappearing any time soon. Why did she have to be in this situation? And so soon after Allison, the last thing she wanted was to be hurting all over again because she had to watch the guy she had feelings for with another girl. No, she thought, she was Lydia Martin and she would not let this inconvenience get the better of her. She would try her hardest to swallow these feelings as far down as she could, and just be happy that he’s happy, because that’s really the only reasonable thing she could hope to do.


End file.
